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Frank Tannenbaum: The Making of a Mexicanist, 1914-1933

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Helen Delpar
Helen Delpar*
Affiliation:
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama
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Extract

On April 19, 1914—two days before the seizure of Vera Cruz by United States marines—North American radicals gathered at Carnegie Hall in New York City to protest the expected use of force against Mexico by the administration of Woodrow Wilson. One of the speakers, William (“Big Bill”) Haywood of the Industrial Workers of the World, threatened a nationwide general strike should the United States go to war against Mexico, and the crowd approved a resolution condemning any act of armed intervention.

But the Mexican crisis was not the only issue that aroused the crowd at Carnegie hall. A second resolution was approved which denounced the imprisonment of a young immigrant called Frank Tannenbaum, who had recently been sentenced to a year in the penitentiary for participating in an illegal assembly. On March 4 — his twenty-first birthday — Tannenbaum had led an “army of the unemployed” into the Roman Catholic Church of St. Alphonsus on West Broadway and had demanded shelter. His arrest that night and subsequent trial had become a cause célèbre among liberals and radicals who believed that he had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , October 1988 , pp. 153 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1988

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References

1 New York Times, April 20, 1914, p. 1; (New York) World, April 20, 1914, p. 5; (New York) Evening Post, April 20, 1914, p. 4.. See also Christopulos, Diana K., “American Radicals and the Mexican Revolution, 1900–1925” (Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1980), pp. 235–236.Google Scholar

2 Tannenbaum, Frank, The Future of Democracy in Latin America (New York, 1974),Google Scholar a collection of essays, contains a biographical sketch (pp. 3–45) by the editors, Joseph Maier and Richard Weatherhead, which gives information about his early life. Tannenbaum’s sister wrote letters to him in 1914 on stationery with the following letterhead: “A. Tanenbaum’s High View Farm, Parksville Station, Sullivan County, N.Y. Elegant Boarding House. Strictly Kosher.”

3 Goldman, Emma, Living My Life (New York, 1934), p. 523.Google Scholar

4 Alexander Berkman, “Becky Edelsohn,” Mother Earth 9 (August 1914): 193-194. See also Charles Willis Thompson, “So-Called I.W.W. Raids Really Hatched by Schoolboys,” New York Times, March 29, 1914, sec. 6, p. 2.

5 Evening Post, March 2, 1914, p. 8. The New York newspapers covered the exploits of Tannenbaum and his army in detail. See World, Feb. 28, 1914, p. 1, March 1, 1914, p. 1, March 2, 1914, p. 1, March 3, 1914, p. 1, March 5, 1914, p. 1; New York Tribune, March 2, 1914, p. 1, March 3, 1914, p. 1, March 4, 1914, p. 1, March 5, 1914, p. 1; New York Times, March 1, 1914, p. 1, March 4, 1914, p. 1, March 5, 1914, p. 1; Evening Post, March 3, 1914, p. 1, March 5, 1914, p. 3.

6 Evening Post, March 5, 1914, p. 3; New York Times, March 5, 1914, p. 3.

7 New York Times, March 25, 1914, p. 6. See also New York Tribune, March 25, 1914, p. 2; World, March 25, 1914, p. 5.

8 Berkman, Alexander, “Tannenbaum Before Pilate,” Mother Earth 9 (April 1914): 49.Google Scholar

9 Mother Earth 9 (March 1914): 6.

10 Holmes, John Haynes, “Tannenbaum in the Large,” The Survey 32 (April 25, 1914): 94–95.Google Scholar See also “The Church and the Unemployed,” The Masses 5 (April 1914): 10–11, and “The Tannenbaum Crime,” ibid. (May 1914): 6–7. A drawing on the case by John Sloan entitled “Calling the Christian Bluff” appears in the April 1914 issue of The Masses on pp. 12–13.

11 New York Times, July 11, 1914, p. 1, July 14, 1914, p. 5, July 15, 1914, p. 18.

12 Ibid., March 10, 1915, p. 6, March 14, 1915, sec. 2, p. 10.

13 Abbott to Tannenbaum, March 25, 1915, Box 2, Frank Tannenbaum Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

14 “The Blackwell’s Island Hell,” The Masses 6 (June 1915): 16–17. See also three other articles by Tannenbaum in The Masses: “What I Saw in Prison,” 6 (May 1915): 8–9; “A Strike in Prison,” 6 (July 1915): 16–18; “Blackwell’s Revisited,” 8 (April 1916): 24. Warden Hayes announced his resignation during an investigation of conditions at Blackwell's Island by the State Prison Commission in the summer of 1915 (New York Times, July 23, 1915, p. 8). The Masses credited Tannenbaum’s articles with hastening Hayes’s departure.

15 Tannenbaum to Frederick E. Weeks, Jan. 1, 1916, Box 5, Tannenbaum Papers.

16 Freeman, Joseph, An American Testament: A Narrative of Rebels and Romantics (New York, 1936; reprint ed., New York, 1973), p. 105.Google Scholar

17 Tannenbaum, Frank, “The Moral Devastation of War,” The Dial 66 (April 5, 1919): 333–336.Google Scholar

18 New York Times, July 12, 1921, p. 12. See also George Palmer Putnam, “The New Tannenbaum,” ibid., June 26, 1921, sec. 6, p. 3, ibid., July 6, 1921, p. 14, ibid., July 13, 1921, p. 8.

19 Paul M. Pearson to Tannenbaum, Oct. 27, 1922, Nov. 21, 1922, Box 4, Tannenbaum Papers.

20 “Sweetened ‘Reds’ and Rebels of Yesteryear,” Literary Digest 84 (Jan. 31, 1925): 40.

21 Tannenbaum to Professor [Walton] Hamilton, June 4, 1924, and Tannenbaum’s fellowship application, Brookings Institution Archives. On the early history of the Institution, see Critchlow, Donald T., The Brookings Institution 1916–1952: Expertise and the Public Interest in a Democratic Society (De-Kalb, IL, 1985), pp. 62–81.Google Scholar

22 Tannenbaum, Frank, “The Miracle School,” The Century Magazine 106 (August 1923): 499–506.Google Scholar

23 Paul U. Kellogg, Sept. 17, 1923, Box 3, Tannenbaum Papers.

24 The Survey 52 (May 1, 1924): 186.

25 Tannenbaum to Louis [Tannenbaum], July 29, 1922, Box 5, Tannenbaum Papers.

26 See reprint of the Century article in Box 41, Tannenbaum Papers.

27 On Haberman, see Christopulos, pp. 444–445; O. Gay lord Marsh to Secretary of State, Oct. 11, 1918, 812.00/22315, Reel 64, and Division of Mexican Affairs, March 10, 1926, 812.20211/28, Reel 138, both in Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Mexico, 1910–29. Microcopy M-274 (Washington, 1959). The latter will henceforth be cited as RDS/IAM. See also Bob Haberman to Tannenbaum, June 25, 1916, Box 3, Tannenbaum Papers.

28 Tannenbaum, Frank, “Samuel Gompers’ Last Convention,” The Survey 53 (Jan. 1, 1925): 391–394.Google Scholar

29 Tannenbaum to Professors Hamilton and [Walter]Shepard, Dec. 20, 1924, Brookings Archives.

30 See the General Program of Tannenbaum’s preliminary examination, May 20, 1925, Brookings Archives. The fact that Gamio’s proposal remained stillborn may be related to his difficulties in the Education Department, which resulted in his resignation in June 1925. See Comas, Juan, “Estudio preliminar,” in Manuel Gamio, Antología (Mexico City, 1975), pp. xxxvii-xlGoogle Scholar and Excelsior, June 7, 1925, p. 1, and June 8, 1925, p. 1.

31 Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, June 6, 1925, Box 5, Tannenbaum Papers.

32 Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, Nov. 8, 1925, Dec. 4, 1925, Box 5; R.A. McGowan to Frank Tannenbaum, May 18, 1926, Box 3, Tannenbaum Papers.

33 Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, Nov. 30, 1925, Box 5, Tannenbaum Papers.

34 Tannenbaum to Hamilton, Mar. 15, 1926, and undated, Brookings Archives.

35 Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, Sept. 7, 1925, Nov. 8, 1925, Box 5, Tannenbaum papers.

36 Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, Feb. 16, 1926, Box, 5, Tannenbaum Papers.

37 Newhall, Nancy, ed., The Daybooks of Edward Weston. I: Mexico (Rochester, NY, 1961), p. 158.Google Scholar On Beals and Gruening, see Britton, John A., “In Defense of Revolution: American Journalists in Mexico,” Journalism History 5 (Winter 1978–79): 124 130.Google Scholar

38 On Retinger, see James Rockwell Sheffield to Secretary of State, Jan. 23, 1926, 812.20211/18, Reel 138, RDS/IAM, and Pomian, Joseph, ed., Joseph Retinger: Memories of an Eminence Grise (Sussex, Eng., 1972).Google Scholar

39 Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, Nov. 30, 1925, Box 5, Tannenbaum Papers.

40 Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, Jan. 18, 1926, Box 5, Tannenbaum Papers.

41 Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, Feb. 24, 1926, Box 5, Tannenbaum Papers.

42 Chicago Tribune, Aug. 9, 1923, p. 1. See also Frederick W. Leighton to Tannenbaum, Aug. 17, 1923, Box 3, Tannenbaum Papers.

43 Sheffield to Frank B. Kellogg (confidential), July 1, 1926, Box 8, James Rockwell Sheffield Papers, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University. On relations between the United States and Mexico in the mid-1920s, see two works by Horn, James J.: “United States Diplomacy and ‘The Specter of Bolshevism’ in Mexico (1924–1927),” The Americas 32 (1975–76): 31–45,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Diplomacy by Ultimatum: Ambassador Sheffield and Mexican-American Relations, 1924–1927” (Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1969).

44 69th Congress, 2d Session, Congressional Record 68, part 5: 5750–5754.

45 Tannenbaum to Frank B. Kellogg, Feb. 18, 1926 (carbon), Box 3, Tannenbaum Papers. This letter also appears as item 711.12/752, Reel 5, in Records of the Department of State Relating to Political Relations between the United States and Mexico, 1910–29. Microcopy 314 (Washington, 1960). This collection will henceforth be cited as RDS/PR.

46 Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, Feb. 10, 1926, Box 5, Tannenbaum Papers. See also entries in Tannenbaum’s 1926 diary for Feb. 6, Feb. 8, and Feb. 9, Box 57, Tannenbaum Papers.

47 Sheffield Report, Feb. 16, 1926, 711.12/685, Reel 5, RDS/PR.

48 Tannenbaum to Kellogg, Feb. 18, 1926. An account of the luncheon appears in Horn, “Diplomacy by Ultimatum,” pp. 91–94.

49 Entry for March 16 in 1926 diary.

50 Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, March 25, 1926, Box 5, Tannenbaum Papers. See also entry for March 23 in 1926 diary.

51 Tannenbaum described the meeting in Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread (New York, 1950), pp. 132–33, but did not mention his part in bringing it about. See also New York Times, May 16, 1926, p. 27, May 17, 1926, p. 5, and Quirk, Robert E., The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1910–1929 (Bloomington, IN, 1973), pp. 159–161.Google Scholar

52 Tannenbaum to Hamilton, Aug. 24, 1925, Brookings Archives. According to Cosío Villegas, he was able to enroll at Harvard University in the fall of 1925 with financial help from students he had taught at the National University Summer School for Foreigners. See “The Reminiscences of Daniel Cosío Villegas,” Oral History Research Office, Columbia University.

53 Entry for April 14 in 1926 diary. See also New York Times, April 8, 1926, p. 8, April 25, 1926, p. 23.

54 Secretary of Education to John Dewey, Dec. 28, 1925 (carbon), Enrique Jiménez D. to Tannenbaum, Jan. 7, 1926, Box 3, and Tannenbaum to Esther Abramson Tannenbaum, Feb. 10, 1926, Box 5, Tannenbaum Papers; Escuela de verano. Cursos para estudiantes y extranjeros (Mexico City, 1926), which can be found in Reel 151, RDS/IAM. Dewey’s articles were reprinted in his Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World: Mexico-China-Turkey (New York, 1929).

55 See remnants of a journal kept by Tannenbaum during the expedition in Box 40 and a mimeographed prospectus of the Comisión Científica Exploradora del Sureste de México y República de Guatemala in Box 57, Tannenbaum Papers.

56 Tannenbaum, Frank, Whither Latin America? An Introduction to Its Economie and Social Problems (New York, 1934), p. 170.Google Scholar

57 Babcock, Charles E. and Bringas, Esperanza Velazquez, “Mexican Participation in American Library Association Work,” Bulletin of the Pan American Union 62 (August 1928):Google Scholar 192, New York Times, Dec. 19, 1927, p. 22.

58 Hubert C. Herring to Tannenbaum, Oct. 27, 1928, and Tannenbaum to Herring, Oct. 29, 1928, Box 3, Tannenbaum Papers.

59 Tannenbaum to Secretary of Public Education, Jan. 9, 1931 (carbon), and March 21, 1931 (carbon), Box 41, Tannenbaum Papers.

60 Tannenbaum, Frank, “Technology and Race in Mexico,” Political Science Quarterly 61 (September 1946): 365–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 Tannenbaum to Colonel [J.J. Coss], Dec. 3, Dec. 8, Dec. 21, 1933, Box 7, Tannenbaum Papers.

62 Tannenbaum, Frank, The Mexican Agrarian Revolution (New York, 1929), p. 29.Google Scholar

63 Ibid., p. 360.

64 Tannenbaum, Frank, Peace by Revolution: Mexico after 1910 (New York, 1968), p. 181.Google Scholar This is a reprint, with only the subtitle changed, of the 1933 edition.

65 Ibid.

66 Diego Rivera to Francisco Mugica, Aug. 31, 1931, Box 1, and Manuel Gamio to Tannenbaum, Nov. 4, 1929, Box 3, Tannenbaum Papers.

67 Charles W. Hackett to Tannenbaum, June 25, 1929, Box 3, Tannenbaum Papers.

68 Reviews appeared in The Survey 63 (Nov. 1, 1929): 174–175; American Economic Review 19 (December 1929): 667-668; American Historical Review 35 (January 1930): 428-429; Hispanic American Historical Review 10 (February 1930): 77–78.

69 The Nation 128 (May 29, 1929): 652–653.

70 Saturday Review of Literature 10 (Jan. 6, 1934): 393.

71 New York Times Dec. 10, 1933, sec. 5, p. 3.

72 Commonweal, Feb. 2, 1934, pp. 386–387.

73 The Nation 138 (Jan. 10, 1934): 50–51.

74 Tannenbaum, , Peace by Revolution, p. 246.Google Scholar

75 Ibid., p. 206.

76 Tannenbaum to E.C. Branson, June 26, 1929, Box 2, Tannenbaum Papers.

77 Meyer, Eugenia, Conciencia histórica norteamericana sobre la Revolución de 1910 (Mexico City, 1970), p. 156.Google Scholar

78 See Bailey, David C., “Revisionism and the Recent Historiography of the Mexican Revolution,” Hispanic American Historical Review 58 (February 1978): 62–79,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Carr, Barry, “Recent Regional Studies of the Mexican Revolution,” Latin American Research Review 15 (1980): 3–14.Google Scholar

79 See, e.g., Katz, Friedrich, “Labor Conditions on Haciendas in Porfirian Mexico: Some Trends and Tendencies,” Hispanic American Historical Review 54 (February 1974): 1–47,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Schryer, Frans J., The Rancheros of Pisaflores: The History of a Peasant Bourgeoisie in Twentieth-Century Mexico (Toronto, 1980).Google Scholar

80 Meyer, p. 181.